Newsweek (January 4)
“For all its love of control, the Chinese leadership appears to have condemned its public to relive the uncertainty of early 2020, when Western capitals couldn’t grasp the spread of COVID. For those hoping to track the country’s first nationwide outbreak, it’s nothing short of a guessing game.”
Tags: 2020, Condemned, Control, Covid, Leadership, Nationwide, Outbreak, Public, Relive, Spread, Uncertainty
Wall Street Journal (May 13)
“Well, the party was fun while it lasted. But now the liquidity tidal wave is crashing as it always does when credit conditions tighten. This week’s crypto-currency crash is the first body exposed on the beach, and let’s hope the damage doesn’t spread too far into the financial system and broader economy.”
Tags: Broader economy, Crash, Credit, Crypto-currency, Damage, Financial system, Liquidity, Party, Spread, Tidal wave, Tighten
Wall Street Journal (December 23)
“Businesses, schools, hospitals and governments are preparing for a new year with a sense of déjà vu, as the spread of Covid-19’s Omicron variant brings a familiar challenge: how best to navigate another surge. This time, they’re hopeful they can stay open and operating.”
Tags: Businesses, Challenge, COVID-19, Déjà vu, Governments, Hospitals, Omicron, Schools, Spread, Surge, Variant
Radio New Zealand (August 17)
Going into a national lock down “buys us some time to see results of testing and contact tracing to assess how widely the outbreak has spread.” So far, there’s only one case, but he may have infected others. “One thing we’ve learned from watching Sydney over the past two months is that half-measures can quickly lead to disaster…. Our best option is to go hard now and then relax later if it turns out we have avoided the worst…. With Delta there are no second chances.”
Tags: Contact tracing, Delta, Disaster, Half-measures, Lock down, Outbreak, Relax, Second chances, Spread, Sydney, Testing
New York Times (May 18)
“With much of the country under a state of emergency and deaths climbing,” Japan’s “yo-yoing economic pattern” is expected to continue “until the country has vaccinated a significant portion of its population.” Given the “plodding” pace of its vaccination program, this “dynamic could potentially push the country back into recession — defined as two consecutive quarters of contraction — later this year, as it struggles to check the spread of deadlier and more contagious coronavirus variants.”
Tags: Contagious, Contraction, Coronavirus, Deadlier, Deaths, Economy, Japan, Recession, Spread, State of emergency, Struggles, Vaccination, Yo-yoing
New York Times (February 8)
“Grim as things sound, there is great reason to hope right now. More vaccines are coming, and case counts and death counts are finally leveling off.” There is, however, also reason for great haste. “The nation remains locked in a desperate contest, between its own ability to vaccinate people as quickly as possible and the virus’s ability to mutate and spread ever faster. Right now, the virus still has the lead.”
Washington Post (May 13)
As countries around the world “explore ways to end stay-at-home orders, countries that had already opened up are closing down again after renewed spikes in infections. Lebanon on Tuesday became the latest country to reimpose restrictions after experiencing a surge of infections, almost exactly two weeks after it appeared to contain the spread of the virus and began easing up.”
Tags: Closing down, Infections, Lebanon, Open up, Restrictions, Spikes, Spread, Stay-at-home, Surge, Virus
Bloomberg (April 3)
“The cost of the coronavirus pandemic could be as high as $4.1 trillion, or almost 5% of global gross domestic product, depending on the disease’s spread through Europe, the U.S. and other major economies,” according to the Asian Development Bank.
Reuters (March 23)
“China is consciously uncoupling from Western peers on rates. Its central bank has held lending benchmarks steady as global peers slash…. The People’s Bank of China’s relative immobility has surprised many economists…. The spread between 10-year Chinese government bonds and U.S. Treasuries is nearly two percentage points, its widest since 2015.”
Tags: Benchmarks, Central bank, China, Economists, PBOC, Rates, Spread, Steady, U.S., Uncoupling, Western
New York Times (March 13)
“China bought the West time. The West squandered it.” In the U.S. and Europe, the attitude has largely “been bizarrely reactive, if not outright passive… governments in those regions have let pass their best chance to contain the virus’s spread.” Why did “so many countries watch the epidemic unfold for weeks as though it was none of their concern?”
Tags: Bizarre Reactive, China, Epidemic, Europe, Governments, Passive, Spread, Squandered, Time, U.S., Virus
